Another group of Mutants
by Ch4rm4nd3r
Summary: Nothing special. Just a little story about 8 of my own mutants. Atlanta, Carter, Crow, Ro, Rayne, Phantom, Alice and Seven, they must stick together to try and survive if they have any hope at all. They follow in the footsteps of Maximum Ride and escape their cages, the hard part now is not getting caught again. Will they survive on their own? Who knows. Beta Reader needed.
1. Prelude

"NO!" I scream as i see the lifeless body lay there motionless, beaten, bloodied and so very familiar. " _No_! Can't be… can't be dead!"

It all happened in a matter of seconds, we were making our way through the facility one moment after saving our friend, and the next moment there's a knife ran through the chest of one of my other friends' chest.

Before the Eraser could pull the knife back and aim another attack at any of us, he was punched squarely in the face and sent flying down the hallway by Atlanta, there was hopefully no chance of the Eraser alerting others after it had launched it's surprise attack.

The Eraser laid crumpled against the wall of the room, _i wasn't sure if it was still breathing or not_ , and to tell you the truth i didn't care. I had my friend in my arms, as another friend felt for a pulse. Even though the body was still warm, we knew from where the knife entered our friend's chest and the way that the blood was now pooling around the limp form and all over my lap, that they were already gone.

I feel one of my friends, _one of my remaining family members_ , pull me back, away from the body, away from someone i couldn't believe was really dead, _another family member, another friend._

"Rayne, we need to go, we can't stay here." I hear them say as they pull me away, through the haze brought on by this traumatic experience, _another one in a series of so many terrible traumatic experiences in my short life_ , i hear one of my other friends cry.

"Rayne, _now_!" Another of my friends yells from some distance away.

After what feels like hours but could only be moments, i feel one of my friends' arms tighten around my middle, pulling me away from my fallen friend, hastily pulling me towards what was probably an exit and our only chance of escape.

My feet make contact with the cold tiles and i feel myself running along with 6 other pairs of feet, the person who had grabbed me and pulled me up and away, now released me, confident that i was capable of running to safety on my own.

"Where do we go?" Someone yelled from my left, panic was clear in their voice.

"I don't know, you just keep him up, and keep moving." Someone else called.

I pinched my eyes shut, hoping that this nightmare would just come to an end, my heart felt like it was stuck in my throat and i had a stitch in my side from running so much.

"We… We can't leave the body… in their clutches." One of the others said in a very small voice, i could hear they were out of breath as well. We came to a stop in a hallway that was still clear of Erasers.

"We can't go back, we need to get out of here… I can't … I can't lose more of you… we can't get caught." Atlanta answered, she was trying to be brave.

Alarms started going off around us and the sterile hallway we were in was bathed in red light with every ear splitting blare of the alarm system.

"Shit, they probably know we've escaped by now." Atlanta bit her lip as she scanned the area for an exit.

"Over here, if we can break through this, we should be able to crawl through and find a way out. At least get out of sight." One of my friends suggested, standing next to an air vent close to the ground in the side of the hallway. It was bolted in by the looks of it, probably in an attempt to make videogame-like escapes harder.

"Okay, stand back." Atlanta said as she stepped forward, cracking her knuckles as she got down on one knee and placed her hands on either side of the vent covering. She took a deep breath and pulled back.

With a loud crack that was almost drowned out by the noise of the blaring alarm, the covering came off and Atlanta tossed it aside. "Everyone get in." She ordered.

One after the other we crawled into the vent, I stole a quick look back at the hallway we came running from after we left our friend behind. I pulled my shirt's sleeves over my hands and started crawling into the cold vent, i was lucky i wore a long sleeve shirt this close to the summer.

There was a sound of a lighter being lit up ahead and the small dark space of the vent lit up with a faint light. We crawled as fast as we could, the sound of the alarms reverberating through the vent system. My teeth were chattering from the cold wind blowing from somewhere deep down in the depths of the vent system we were crawling through, but no one was complaining. _We haven't been found yet, so why would we?_

There was some kind of silent agreement that we should all keep our mouths shut as we silently crawled, even though there were so many topics up for discussion after everything that's happened to us in the past 24 hours.

We haven't slept, we haven't eaten, we haven't felt safe for so long now that it felt like capture and almost certain death would be a better option over this kind of life. I found myself almost feeling jealous of my dead friend.

To think, just in the space of 24 hours, our lives made a total 180 back into Shitsville after what felt like so many weeks of being free, of _finally_ being free.

Are we even allowed to have normal lives? Are we allowed the simple courtesy of freedom?

 _We're only kids…_

The lighter finally runs out of gas, and we are plunged into darkness, only broken by the flashes of red light coming from the still bolted down vent openings we pass on what could only be a useless delay before our capture.

We all stay silent.


	2. Chapter 1 - Where it all started

**[A/N Hai, First chapter sort of i guess, anyway i'm gonna need a beta reader on this story, so if you're interested in reading what i have in mind before most everyone else, then this is the job for you! This is just a fun fic that i've decided to start writing so i can have something to keep myself busy with when i'm not in the mood for drawing too much]**

It all started a month, maybe longer ago. We had escaped captivity together and were on the run, scavenging McDumpsters for McTrash that was still hopefully edible. We were living off the land and staying off the radar.

"Another feast fit for kings, I say." Carter joked with a slight smirk on his freckled face as he dropped a half eaten big mac in Crow's lap and sat down next to him.

We were camping out in a little wooded park in some small Virginia town i didn't care to learn the name of. It was already starting to become dusk and Seven was curled up against Ro, ready to sleep. Carter had gone out to the nearby shopping strip to look for food or something useful, and had come back with a paper bag full of half eaten discarded food from various eateries and a blanket under the other arm.

"Thank you Carter, but couldn't you have grabbed some drinks too?" I asked with a slight grin as i took another sip of the water we'd gotten from the stream nearby.

"Hey, i had to fight off a rat the size of a small dog for that burger Phantom's eating, i didn't have time to stick around to search for drinks too." Carter defended as the snake mutant next to me almost choked on his burger trying to spit out the piece of burger he had been chewing. "Don't worry, i got it before it even touched your food." Carter added with an apologetic grin.

"Did you see anyone strange in town while you were out there?" Atlanta asked, she'd finished her burrito and had her arm around her younger sister, Alice, who was nibbling a piece of pepperoni pizza.

"Nah, no suits or random hairy bodybuilders." Carter informed us, swinging back a large gulp of water from a plastic bottle. Since going on the run with my friends, we've been on the lookout for tell tale signs of Erasers. They usually wore suits as far as we could tell, and they were larger built and more hairy than the average American we saw.

Erasers are these crazy monster like wolf guys that work for this evil place we like to call the school, just so you know. If only they remained monster like wolf guys though, that would have made our job spotting them so much easier, _but no_ , they have this ability of morphing into almost human looking 20 somethings. I say almost human looking because in reality, they aren't that great at morphing, they're usually large muscle masses with body hair, that and they look somewhat unnatural to the untrained eye.

"That's good." Atlanta smiled and closed her eyes for a moment, she looked so relaxed for a moment, the most relaxed i've seen her in ages.

Atlanta was always so worried about keeping us safe, but now that we were out, she sort of took on a leadery role, and made it her personal mission to keep us alive, Carter sort of assumed the role of her second in command in keeping us all alive.

There's 8 of us, Atlanta, Carter, Crow, Ro, Me(Rayne), Phantom, Alice and Seven. We're all mutants and on the run as you've probably gathered. Most of us are some kind of bird mutant, while Phantom's the only non flyer being a snake mutant and all.

We've spent most of our lives in cages being experimented and tested on, but not now, now we were free and on the run.

"I'll take first watch, you guys get some rest." I suggested and got up to my feet.

"Thanks." Atlanta smiled and laid down, Alice curling up next to her. The others said their goodnights as they all laid down on their blankets, Phantom the only one curling up under his.

I pulled my headphones off of my ears and flew up into the branches of the large tree we were sleeping under, with my small finch wings i'm able to easily fly up there and land on a thick branch. With my headphones off i'm able to hear every sound around us for what felt like miles.

Off in the distance i could hear cars on what i guessed was the interstate, closer by i could hear the stream, some bugs singing serenades to each other and a bird or two getting ready to call it a night. My powers usually only came in handy for keeping watch and things like that, as i had hawk like vision and above normal hearing, well i'd say painfully good hearing to be more accurate. If it weren't for my trusty noise canceling headphones i would have gone crazy from all the fine little sounds i could hear that would have been too quiet for others.

Anyway, keeping watch was a terribly boring job, but it was nice listening to my sleeping friends down below and knowing they were safe, it was the small things that kept me going some days, that kept me positive.

I crossed my arms and leaned back against the tree's trunk, just listening to the night sounds around us.


End file.
